A Killing Truth (Leine Basso Thriller Prequel) - D.V. Berkom

For the Indies Unlimited Reading Challenge this month, I'm supposed to read a book in a genre I don't usually pick up. Thrillers qualify, for sure; usually I find them violent for the sake of being violent, and lacking in character development.

With D.V. Berkom's work, however, I don't have either problem. This is the second of her books that I've read, and I've enjoyed them both.

A Killing Truth is a prequel to Berkom's series featuring Leine Basso, a kickass operative for a shady U.S. anti-terrorist agency. When she's not picking off bad guys, she enjoys time with her young daughter. And she has a boyfriend, Carlos, who shares her line of work. When Leine nearly gets killed on assignment, she writes it off as a bad job -- but Carlos thinks their boss might be trying to eliminate them both. Then Carlos goes missing -- and the boss sends Leine on a crazy mission that's sure to get her killed.

Leine is a no-nonsense professional and a deadly adversary -- and as usual with Berkom's work, the excellent editing and taut pacing kept me on the edge of my seat to the very end.

As A Killing Truth is a prequel, you don't need to have read any of the other books in the series to enjoy this one. Highly recommended for readers who like their crime novels with tough female heroines.

Yucatan Dead (A Kate Jones Thriller) - D.V. Berkom

Like all good thrillers, Yucatan Dead starts off with a bang and keeps going.

Kate Jones wakes up, realizing she's been kidnapped. And it doesn't take long before she figures out who is behind it: a former lover who also happens to be a Mexican drug lord. He's after her for the money she took when she left him, and since then, every attempt she has made to start a normal life anew has ended with the people she loves in trouble.

In a twist of fate, she manages to escape from his clutches yet again, and falls in with a shadowy paramilitary organization that uses less-than-legal means to combat the drug trade. The head of the organization gives her a choice: get out of Mexico and go back to her life in the States, or help him bring down her former lover. But Kate knows that leaving would only mean continuing to live on the lam.

This is the first of Berkom's six Kate Jones books that I've read, but I didn't have any trouble following the goings-on -- the author fills in just enough back story to clue in the reader. The pace is fast, the characters believable, and the editing excellent. I enjoyed Yucatan Dead, and now I may have to go back and read the previous books in the series.